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Portuguese and the Spanish "discount" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| amethyst32 Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5653 days ago 118 posts - 198 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, French | Message 1 of 11 06 June 2011 at 1:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm studying Portuguese and I've been finding that virtually all the heavy lifting saved by the grammatical and lexical similarities in the written language is undone by the pronunciation and overall sound of it when it's spoken. To overcome this, I've increased my L-R time and decided to focus only on the Brazilian variety (which I find more accessible) and it's working because I'm beginning to feel a level of comfort with the language. In my experience, any "discount" from Spanish has been worth only around 40%, and while that's something, it's nowhere near the 80% that it's often (over)sold as. Anyway, it's all good because it's taught me a really important lesson about the need to take each language on it's own merits, but I wanted to know the opinion of others who've studied both languages whether or not your expectations matched up with the reality. Thanks! :-) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5085 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 2 of 11 06 June 2011 at 3:52am | IP Logged | ||||||||
The difference is that you're not a native speaker of Spanish. If you were, you would find a lot more similarities. I'm Portuguese speaker, and I'm quite sure that I understand more than 80% of the language (I've never studied it). If you had a native Spanish/Portuguese vocabulary in your mind, you would understand a lot more. Edited by Matheus on 06 June 2011 at 3:53am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| amethyst32 Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5653 days ago 118 posts - 198 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, French | Message 3 of 11 06 June 2011 at 9:12am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hi, Yes, I think it's obvious that any advantage would be clearer to a native speaker. That's why I asked what's been the experience of others who've *studied* both languages (by implication, non-native speakers of either) because I think that is more comparable with my own situation. That said, I don't think vocabulary is the issue since I've had no problem with *written* Portuguese and could understand most of it before I started studying it. My question is based on the fact that I didn't find much - if any - advantage from Spanish transferred to *spoken* Portuguese, and I'm trying to gage how common this is among other learners. Edited by amethyst32 on 06 June 2011 at 9:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5266 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 11 06 June 2011 at 1:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I agree. I find the spoken language to be quite a challenge due to the extra vowels and markedly different pronunciation. It has taken me a while to become accustomed to it. To anyone who thinks that Portuguese is such a "low hanging fruit" for those who have learned Spanish to a high level, I can tell you from my experience as an English speaker who has learned Spanish that it does indeed require effort to learn Portuguese- pelo menos eu acho que sim. Yesterday, a mono-lingual English friend of mine who was overhearing me speaking in Portuguese with a native speaker friend of ours commented- "Wow, it really sounds quite different from Spanish!" So, yes it is an advantage knowing Spanish compared to starting Portuguese from scratch, and I am very grateful for it, but just like amethyst32, I find that the advantage doesn't carry quite so far with spoken Portuguese. I can read at a much higher level in Portuguese than I can speak and I am practicing speaking three to five times a week in-person with native speakers, both on-island and over skype. I will get to where I want to be eventually. Learning Portuguese after learning Spanish is not as easy as one may think. It still takes work. Edited by iguanamon on 06 June 2011 at 1:19pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6015 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 5 of 11 06 June 2011 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Speaking isn't just about pronunciation, though. So "no advantage in pronunciation" is very different indeed from "no advantage in spoken language". If you want to see how little of spoken language pronunciation is, try studying Basque. The Spanish sound-system was essentially inherited from Basque, but that's small consolation when you're trying to cope with the grammar and lexicon.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6923 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 11 06 June 2011 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Check out this free e-boook:
From Spanish to Portuguese 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5085 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 7 of 11 06 June 2011 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Oh yes, of course. Maybe you only have this "80%" discount if you have studied Portuguese first (because we understand Spanish better than Spaniards understand Portuguese) and have a huge vocabulary. Anyway, 40% is still enough similarity for two useful languages, isn't it? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| amethyst32 Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5653 days ago 118 posts - 198 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, French | Message 8 of 11 06 June 2011 at 7:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks for your reply, Iguanamon. I think the popular advice suggests that you can almost take Portuguese for granted if you know Spanish, but Portuguese is telling me "Nope, you have to do some work here too!". :-)
Thanks, that's very helpful. :-)
It certainly is, and I'm making the best use out of it that I can. L-Ring is my main method of studying Portuguese now, and it's really helping to bridge the written/spoken gap. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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